Sweet violets

[GUT]

More Pierre drivel?

Or is this the last piece of data we were promised over a year ago that would let the great whatever he claims to be this week (Scientist, Sociologist, Historian) , reveal Jack.

[Mayerling]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...s_Alderton.jpg

AKA Dr Pepper

I'm just thicke!

Ah, Dr. Pepper - so misunderstood!

Jeff

[Mayerling]

[QUOTE=Pierre;389927]

The lyrics of Sweet Violets were published in the Pall Mall Gazette 10 November 1888.

The song was not the song described by Cox. It was not described as having been heard at the same point of time as the song heard by Cox.

We should rule out Cox. This is not the song heard by Cox.

Did Kelly ever sing it?


There is no evidence for Kelly having sung the song. The song is not mentioned in the police investigation from the 9th November and it is not mentioned in the inquest source.

Who was "a woman", telling the press the song was sung by Kelly?

[B]The name of the "woman" is not mentioned in the papers. There is no description of that woman. It could have been any woman.

Why did the press get the information of this song?

Because, according to the papers, "a woman" told them. But no newspaper gives an account of the motive for "a woman" for doing so.

The information given by that person is picked up by the newspapers but without any analysis of the circumstances connected to the information.

What do the contents of the song mean from the perspective of the song itself?

The contents can be defined as follows:

1. Flowers have been plucked.
2. Flowers have been plucked for a woman.
3. They are given to her.
4. The woman is asked to stay and to not go away.
5. The one who plucked the flower in beauty´s bower was crouched and all unnoticed.
6. The flowers were plucked and they now look up to heaven.

Regards, Pierre

Interesting - and hard to see how (given the provenance problem of who sang it (Mary Kelly or whomever), why was it sung (by personal choice or request by another party), and what song it precisely the one that was heard - and by whom? - this is going to assist us at all.

Both songs treat the act of plucking a violet or thinking of a violet as a key to memory of the long ago - similar to the use by Marcel Proust of the madelin cookie to unlock his memories of fin-de-siec France thirty years earlier in "Remembrance of Things Past". The flower is connected to the beloved dead (the singer's mother).

As such both songs are reminiscent of the heavy handed sentiments of Victorian popular music. Although not dealing with the same area of consideration, they are tunes of their age that produced songs like "After the Ball was Over" or "Take Back Your Gold" or "The Bird in the Gilded Cage". These tunes became super popular between 1880 and 1910, so we remember them today, but today nobody would quite compose lyrics to tunes like these.

But the confusion is quite interesting. So is Pierre's somewhat condemnatory (thought not really intentional) statement that the newspapers picked up the information but never analyzed just why it was offered (not who offered it).

I don't think the papers had to make such an analysis.

On November 10, 1888 London was reeling from the most horrifying murder of recent memory (and the most recent horror of a string of horrifying killings of women) when it learned the details of the death of Mary Jane Kelly, and how her body was found in her room. Whatever thoughts one had about prostitutes (or women suspected of being prostitutes), the average person hearing of what happened to poor Mary would have wanted something to be offered reaffirming her humanity. Mary being reported as having sung one or more songs before her death just did exactly that. Both songs offered were known tunes, but hardly major clues to the solving of the killing. So one could say the papers were basically giving a type of public "placebo" to their readers to reassure them that Mary was a decent human being with fine feelings. Either tune would have done so...if she actually sang one or the other or both or some similar tune.

As I read this I think ahead to events of April some twenty four years later, when people reading of the last hours of the sinking of R.M.S. Titanic learned that bandleader Wallace Hartley and his fellow musicians on the vessel kept up people's morale by playing their instrument until the bitter end. The songs they were reported to have played between 11:40 P.M April 14, 1912 and 2:20 A.M. April 15, 1912 were widely different, depending on who was being quoted in the newspapers. The music reported was:

1) Alexander's Ragtime Band (a popular hit in 1912)
2) Ragtime music in general
3) As the ship dipped under, "Nearer My God To Thee" (which led to a problem: there are two different versions of this hymn, one American and one British - so which one?)
4) Possibly an Episcopal hymn instead: "Autumn"

This controversy has lasted until the present day! It has been complicated in recent years when the people who were quoted as saying it was "Autumn" may have been misunderstood by the Press. You see, in 1912 there was a popular tune (you can find it on You Tube) called "Songe d' Autun", that was frequently played in cafes, restaurants, and on board ships in the western world. It may have been the number those people heard from the lifeboats or on the decks.

So 104 years after the sinking of the "unsinkable ship" we have five choices of what Hartley and his fellows played. They were all lost in the disaster (thus ensuring their memories as heroes), so none could be interviewed by newspaper or magazine writers about what they played in those last hours.

Given that situation, it should not really surprise us that a melody got somehow connected to the horrors of Miller's Court on 11/9/1888 and nobody could really tell 1) who originally told this to the press, 2) whether it was true or not; and 3) what specific tune was it.

Jeff

[DJA]

Unfortunately,when it comes to provenance,Pierre does not have a clue.

Somehow a newspaper mistake takes precedence over sworn Inquest evidence by Mary Ann Cox,when it suits him.

Have no idea why you lot continue to feed this poster.

[Joshua Rogan]

The Times 10th Nov reports John McCarthy as saying;

"It is most extraordinary that nothing should have been heard by the neighbours, as there are people passing backwards and forwards at all hours of the night, but no one heard so much as a scream. I woman heard Kelly singing "Sweet Violets" at 1 o'clock this morning. So up to that time, at all events, she was alive and well."

So maybe the mistaken or misremembered song title originated with him.

However, Mrs Cox (presumably the woman who told him about the singing) at inquest said she heard Kelly start singing "A violet I plucked from my mother's grave when a boy" at a quarter to twelve, and that she was still singing at 1am. She doesn't say if Kelly was still singing the same song though, so perhaps it really was "Sweet Violets" on the second occasion? Perhaps in the intervening 75 minutes Kelly had run through an entire repertoire of songs featuring violets?
My money's on a McCarthy mistake, though.

[DJA]

http://www.candywarehouse.com/assets/item/large/violet-crumble-candy-bars-130908-im.jpg

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=DJA;389948]

Unfortunately,when it comes to provenance,Pierre does not have a clue.

Somehow a newspaper mistake takes precedence over sworn Inquest evidence by Mary Ann Cox,when it suits him.

Hi,

Clues are no good when they are looking too perfect.

No, it does not take precedence over the statements of Cox. That is my point but you did not understand that.

The point is that it has nothing to do with Cox.

It is another type of source describing another event.

Best wishes, Pierre

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=Mayerling;389943]

Interesting - and hard to see how (given the provenance problem of who sang it (Mary Kelly or whomever), why was it sung (by personal choice or request by another party), and what song it precisely the one that was heard - and by whom? - this is going to assist us at all.

Both songs treat the act of plucking a violet or thinking of a violet as a key to memory of the long ago - similar to the use by Marcel Proust of the madelin cookie to unlock his memories of fin-de-siec France thirty years earlier in "Remembrance of Things Past". The flower is connected to the beloved dead (the singer's mother).

As such both songs are reminiscent of the heavy handed sentiments of Victorian popular music. Although not dealing with the same area of consideration, they are tunes of their age that produced songs like "After the Ball was Over" or "Take Back Your Gold" or "The Bird in the Gilded Cage". These tunes became super popular between 1880 and 1910, so we remember them today, but today nobody would quite compose lyrics to tunes like these.

But the confusion is quite interesting. So is Pierre's somewhat condemnatory (thought not really intentional) statement that the newspapers picked up the information but never analyzed just why it was offered (not who offered it).

I don't think the papers had to make such an analysis.

On November 10, 1888 London was reeling from the most horrifying murder of recent memory (and the most recent horror of a string of horrifying killings of women) when it learned the details of the death of Mary Jane Kelly, and how her body was found in her room. Whatever thoughts one had about prostitutes (or women suspected of being prostitutes), the average person hearing of what happened to poor Mary would have wanted something to be offered reaffirming her humanity. Mary being reported as having sung one or more songs before her death just did exactly that. Both songs offered were known tunes, but hardly major clues to the solving of the killing. So one could say the papers were basically giving a type of public "placebo" to their readers to reassure them that Mary was a decent human being with fine feelings. Either tune would have done so...if she actually sang one or the other or both or some similar tune.

As I read this I think ahead to events of April some twenty four years later, when people reading of the last hours of the sinking of R.M.S. Titanic learned that bandleader Wallace Hartley and his fellow musicians on the vessel kept up people's morale by playing their instrument until the bitter end. The songs they were reported to have played between 11:40 P.M April 14, 1912 and 2:20 A.M. April 15, 1912 were widely different, depending on who was being quoted in the newspapers. The music reported was:

1) Alexander's Ragtime Band (a popular hit in 1912)
2) Ragtime music in general
3) As the ship dipped under, "Nearer My God To Thee" (which led to a problem: there are two different versions of this hymn, one American and one British - so which one?)
4) Possibly an Episcopal hymn instead: "Autumn"

This controversy has lasted until the present day! It has been complicated in recent years when the people who were quoted as saying it was "Autumn" may have been misunderstood by the Press. You see, in 1912 there was a popular tune (you can find it on You Tube) called "Songe d' Autun", that was frequently played in cafes, restaurants, and on board ships in the western world. It may have been the number those people heard from the lifeboats or on the decks.

So 104 years after the sinking of the "unsinkable ship" we have five choices of what Hartley and his fellows played. They were all lost in the disaster (thus ensuring their memories as heroes), so none could be interviewed by newspaper or magazine writers about what they played in those last hours.

Given that situation, it should not really surprise us that a melody got somehow connected to the horrors of Miller's Court on 11/9/1888 and nobody could really tell 1) who originally told this to the press, 2) whether it was true or not; and 3) what specific tune was it.

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

On a nomothetical level of history, popular songs might have functions for larger groups of people, for society and so on, as myths connected to disasters and bad events.

Such a nomothetic position is not relevant, I think, in this case, since the murders are done by an individual with his own motive. Therefore, an idiographic history should be relevant and we should establish facts on sources from the perspective of the motive and thinking of one individual an not from a perspective of large groups in society.

Anyway, I appreciate your descriptions of that function of myths and think they are relevant for other historical events. As we know, such historical functions are relevant when we study culture in political contexts and so on.

Jeff, there is a much more simple and direct question connected to the song. Perhaps you would like to suggest some answer. The simple question is: Why do people give other people flowers?

Kind regards, Pierre

[DJA]

[QUOTE=Pierre;389958]

Hi,

Clues are no good when they are looking too perfect.

No, it does not take precedence over the statements of Cox. That is my point but you did not understand that.

The point is that it has nothing to do with Cox.

It is another type of source describing another event.

Best wishes, Pierre

Quite frankly,you are either an idiot or a troll.

Probably both.

[David Orsam]

It is another type of source describing another event.

Unless it's a simple and understandable mistake on the part of the PMG and/or its informant.

In which case it's a source describing the same event but inaccurately.

[David Orsam]

The simple question is: Why do people give other people flowers?

If the PMG was in error in identifying the song sung by MJK as "Sweet Violets" why would one even bother to ask this question?

The song actually sung by MJK refers to a flower being plucked, not given to anyone.

In fact, I can think of a much better question as follows:

This thread is another complete waste of time isn’t it?

[GUT]

In fact, I can think of a much better question as follows:

This thread is another complete waste of time isn’t it?

Oh oh oh

I can answer that one...

Pierre started it, so of course it is.

[Pierre]

Unless it's a simple and understandable mistake on the part of the PMG and/or its informant.

In which case it's a source describing the same event but inaccurately.

And perhaps you would like to answer that question?

If that is the case, will you perform an analysis of the sources?

[David Orsam]

And perhaps you would like to answer that question?

If that is the case, will you perform an analysis of the sources?

By "that question" I assume you mean the question (which I didn't actually ask): "Did the PMG make a mistake?"

Well if you don't mind me saying so, Pierre, it's completely obvious that they did. Mrs Cox told us what the correct song was. It involved a violet in the lyrics and the PMG, or its informant, simply, and understandably, muddled up two similar songs about violets.

It's not rocket science.

[Harry D]

In fact, I can think of a much better question as follows:

This thread is another complete waste of time isn’t it?

Maybe yes, maybe no, but I guarantee it'll have a dozen pages yet. Pierre has developed quite a following on here for a guy who apparently doesn't know what he's talking about.